Hello and Welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson and the witness history team.

Each week first-hand testimony of events from the past which have shaped our world.

This time out we've got women's history in America and China, science history with a tiny worm,

wildlife and the Bay of Pigs.

With me this week I have Mike Louise Bob and Rebecca hello to you all let's see what you've been up to Mike first of all

This week Max I'm going to bring you a story from Cuba it's 60 years since a failed US invasion of the island to try and topple the communist government there.

The famous Bay of pigs, Bob, you're next, what's up?

Hi Max, I'm looking at the vulture and how it almost disappeared in South Asia at the end of the 1990s.

And Rebecca?

Hello Max, I've been exploring an intriguing ancient matriarchal society in China's

Himalayas right up in the mountains where it turns out that the women run everything and are in charge

Well, I know several people who would be very happy to live in those circumstances but we begin this week with

Louise Hidalgo and Louise you've been looking at the life and times of a trailblazing

woman in America that's right maxi yeah I've been looking at the story of the first

woman justice on the US Supreme Court,

so America's highest court. It was in 1981, so it's 40 years ago and her name was

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and I talked to her friend and colleague Ruth

Begrager who told me about that time.

It was such an emotional moment for me for every woman in law and for women in general and I think for a lot of men.

It was just one of those extraordinary moments in history.

In July 1981, newly elected Republican President Ronald Reagan announced he was

nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O'Connor to fill a vacancy on America's top

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